Throwback: Delete Your Blog

This is a revisiting and updating of an old post I wrote way back in 2012, Why You Shouldn’t Have A Blog. It’s a bit out of date so I hope you’ll love today’s version as a current perspective on the topic.

You shouldn’t have a blog.

Yes, I’m probably talking to you.

Blogging is a way to connect with your fans. But artists don’t usually do well when they set out to grow their fanbase with their blog. You likely won’t find success and won’t even enjoy the process if you want new people to be finding and reading your blog in droves so you sell more art.

There are a few reasons why.

Blogging requires desire and dedication, decent writing skills, the ability to recognize what aspects of your life will captivate other people, photography skills, and time to put into marketing the blog. And most of all, it takes a long time to build up the audience for your blog to see success.

BLOGGING LOOKS EASY.

But it’s really only easy when you’re meant to blog. When you love delivering this wonderful content to your readers on a consistent schedule, when you can’t wait to talk to your followers in the comments section, and when you enjoy creating photo sessions (at least weekly) specifically for that next post that’s on your mind – that’s when it’s magic.

But if instead you can’t wait to add “just one more” widget to your sidebar because you’re hoping that’s the one that will bring you thousands of readers overnight and hundreds of sales out of nowhere… well you’re going to be disappointed.

And when you get disappointed with your blog, you resent it, you neglect, and subsequently it sits there looking abandoned and making people think you are a flaky, unreliable artist.

Getting your blog to work requires tons of work!

You have to build up a following by constantly marketing your blog. And when you’re marketing your blog, you’re not marketing your art (directly), so it’s lots of marketing juju drawing a less-direct line to selling your art.

Whyyyy?

(That’s what I sound like when I let out a cry of frustration and confusion.)
(This is what I look like.)

But imagine you’ve done that, you’re marketing the blog well and lots of new people are reading it every time you post.

You have to find a way to keep them around.
Then you have to make sure you are writing new blog posts on schedule, which is often once a week or, at minimum, once a month.
And then you have to prod those blog readers to interact with you in a different way, by buying your art.

Making that leap from reading a blog post to buying something is tough.

You have to strategize and match the topic of the blog post very clearly to the art you suggest they buy and then you have to -gulp- actually ask them to go buy it.

Ok, ok. I’m going on for a long time about how hard it is to run a blog.

But what I need to tell you most is what you can do instead.

First, real quick, here’s a quiz to decide if you should be blogging.

O Am I willing to post a few times a month, no matter what?

O Do I enjoy connecting with people online?

O Will I be able to take lots of photographs for every post?

O Will I know how to identify aspects of my life or art practice that I not only want to share, but that will also be interesting to my potential customers?

O Am I prepared to spend hours working on my blog and not make a dime from it?

O Do I have the intuition to match my blog design & images to its content?

O Can I write with proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation?

O Do I want to spend the time on a blog?

If you check off every one of these – you’re golden! Keep your blog (or start one if you don’t have one yet). If you have most of them, but a couple are eluding you, be really aware of the boxes you didn’t check and try to take steps to eliminate the potential problem.

For example, if you have trouble with spelling and grammar, perhaps hire a copyeditor and have them look over your posts before they go live. Or maybe you just decide that isn’t where you’re going to shine and you will put up with the mean trolls in the comments who complain and you won’t let it bother you if someone doesn’t buy your art because they think you aren’t professional.

NOW, WHAT DO YOU DO INSTEAD OF BLOGGING…?

My favorite thing to tell artists after dropping the bomb that they should delete their blog is:

Borrow other people’s blogs.

Public Relations is the fancy business term for getting the media to talk about you. And I highly encourage you to explore PR because someone else is doing all that work for you instead of you starting a blog. They’re keeping up with posts, marketing it like crazy, taking all the photographs, feeling hemmed in by the need for consistency, etc.

And all you do is get them to talk about your art on their blog, in their magazine, on their podcast, etc.

Want to learn how to get the media to talk about your art?

I’ve got a course for that, of course. (A course of course!)

It’s called Press Bootcamp and you can start the course today if you want! It’s only $17 and you’ll get the first lesson right away. If you’d rather have my eyes on your work, you can wait until I do another live version where I’ll help you with each step. Just sign up for the interest list (you’ll also get my regular emails with new articles and such) and I’ll let you know when I run Bootcamp live again.

WHAT ELSE CAN YOU DO INSTEAD OF BLOG?

Well the great thing about blog content is that it’s just ‘content’.

It can live somewhere other than a blog.

There’s no reason that you can only share your creative exploits, new pieces, sketchbook pages, studio shots, trip photos, etc on a blog. Why not share that stuff on social media (but as a relationship-building tool, remember)… or better yet! Why not share that stuff through emails.

I looooove email marketing for this stuff because it’s exactly what people want to hear from you when they sign up for your “newsletter”. And your fans are already in their inboxes, so it’s way easier for them than trying to remember to check your Instagram feed or find your blog again. Learn how over here.

Let me know what you think in the comments and go ahead and sign up for Bootcamp if you want to learn how to get the media talking about your art!

What I would do is remove it from the navigation, but don’t delete the page itself and the posts. So if someone were to type the blog link into their browser they could find it, but they aren’t going to stumble upon it browsing your website. And then just don’t even worry about posting to it anymore. Forget it’s there. 🙂 That’s one burden off your back!

I love this post Laura, and perhaps after 9 years of blogging, it’s time to redirect my energy towards my newsletter and videos, which I’m starting to have more fun with. I would rather do a monthly newsletter which I started again. Maybe even guest blog and be on other blogs. Could I be a guest blogger without having my own blog?

Absolutely! a) I think this is a great thing for you. b) You can absolutely be a guest blogger with or without your own blog. You can even guest blog without your own website, though I probably wouldn’t recommend it. I suggest you direct all your guest posts to an email signup page so that everyone new finding you is encouraged to get your monthly newsletters.

I have a personal blog just sitting there being neglected. I have all these ideas of things I might want to share, but I never get around to it because I’m too busy and like you say – it takes a lot of time / writing skills, etc.

Maybe I should think of something like Behance or more of a gallery blog. Nice perspective!

Hi Laura!
Great perspective.
Sometimes I wonder if I should just stick to my newsletter and instagram, yet I tend to use my blog a couple of times a month to share news and flesh out ideas more than I can fit in a post on social media.
Is this useful or am I just doubling up?

I would be inclined to tell you to flesh out the ideas privately and then share them publicly in newsletter and Insta when you know what you want to say. News can always be shortened to be appropriate for social media. BUT ALSO don’t assume things are too long for Instagram. People will actually read long posts on Instagram and you’ll get more interaction from those than from short posts. It probably can’t be like a long blog post length, but it can be 5-8 paragraphs even. I’ve also seen some people do a series of posts on Insta to get everything they want to say in there. They just plan out how they want to organize their thoughts so that the posts can stand alone, but work better together. And then you can post a few times in one day, which is good for your engagement rates (and thus Instagram will show your posts more often, snowballing the effect).

Thanks Laura definitely an interesting read. I only started blogging about art in 2010 I did enjoy it for awhile, gained some connections but have noticed the slow down.. I have benefitted from showcasing my art on my blog, I gained some freelance work but now utilize social media on a daily basis. I am also considering starting a newsletter and or adding more videos. Thanks for the advice!

Glad to help! Video is definitely popular right now because it’s more engaging than photos/text. But so are gifs! So don’t stress too much about the video thing. Definitely start a newsletter. Look at what some of the more popular artists do with their newsletters and do something similar with your own spin.

This is interesting Laura !
I actually thought one should have a blog AND a newsletter ! Newsletter to make announcements and bring people to the blog. While a blog is used to generate interest in my artwork… i.e. Art process , struggles, studio work, etc …

That’s a common thought process, Mel. But what ends up happening is that people go to the blog and then…. well nothing. They might read a post or two but then they close the blog. And so what is it REALLY doing for your art business? Much better to find a way to make the newsletter generate interest in your artwork AND sales than to add in this extra middle step that dissipates excitement and puts more steps on the path to sales.

Interesting, Laura. Thank you. You have always something interesting to say and I enjoy your e-mails. Well, I love my blog not because I have a lot of readers, but it is so lovely to have a place to refer to when I have a new product, a launch or to build up exitement. I am more into blogging than using Social Media even though I use Facebook and Instagram. I am a jewellery designer of bohemian jewelleries and can so much relate to the subjects you have for “artist”. I am Danish.
Best Annette

I love that you’ve found something that works well for you!! No two art businesses are the same. If blogging is working, blogging is working. I’m not surprised it would work better for a jewelry designer. My posts are always written with wall art in mind so sometimes there are going to be things that just don’t make as much sense for you. But I’m glad you’re finding most of my emails helpful!

Interesting post Laura!
What I do is create a blog post of what I want to share with my readers and email my newsletter with an short intro and teaser photo so they click on it and view the content on my site rather than on email.
(Typically a post is a tutorial video with detailed steps, list of supplies used and photos of the results. And some image links to my books if they want to learn more. )
So in theory I get visitors on youtube because that’s where the video is posted, from my newsletter and also via google searches. I try to also advertise the posts on IG but basically, I’m trying to get everyone to end up in one central place: my website.
It’s a lot of work for sure and I slowed down from doing this weekly to twice/month.
Is this time wasted? Would there be a better way?

Thank you. Now I don’t feel pressured to go back to blogging to advertise my art and I can go delete the few posts that I did write over a year ago.
I’ve been thinking my art in more business terms lately. I’m interested in the Press Bootcamp but I’m not quite ready for it yet. I may want to do that next month.

Hi, Laura. I started a blog when I was first diagnosed with breast cancer. During my recovery, I got involved with art and started posting on that topic. Over time, I found it harder to write because I was having a hard time mentally connecting with my audience (unknown, but there according to the website statistics). Last month, I turned that material into a newsletter and because I know every person on my mailing list, it became so much fun, I was already planning the next newsletter while still working on the first. What a difference!